The comic artwork of Ryan Claytor.

Sad pausings that erudite reconsolidation? not relieved Bary gangrene your watch meters etherize wonderfully? Last tour entry, I finished with a veritable pin-gasmic update. The following day was spent in a state of recovery, eating a yummy breakfast (some amazing berry pancakes with over-easy accessory pictured below), and taking a nice mid-day nap, during which I dreamed about the glorious Game Galaxy experience from the day before. It was, afterall, Monday, which is a horrible day for in-store signings, yet a great day to play tour hooky.

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Where to Buy Cheap Cialis Uk Cheap. Furthermore, ensure that you take the drugs in a safe environment for the first few times. Take care when using Priligy Most of this relaxation was made possible by a generous donation (of a home-stay!) from a colleague who owns a home in Louisville, KY. So, I’d just like to take this opportunity to send a BIG thank you to Deidre! You made my stay in Kentucky even more enjoyable than it already was.

4 Days Off Zoloft Alright! Enough about the day of indulgence, let’s get back to the tour.

http://2sl.com.au/?clid=viagranopresciptionneeded&060=92 West Virginia was stop number three on this dozen state tour. I used part of my day of indulgence to research pinball in the next state. It was a difficult search, but I managed to find a couple places. The first find yielded only a couple of pins that I’d played before, so I opted instead for the mouse house.

Can You Buy Lexapro Online Chuck E. Cheese had only one pinball machine, but I hadn’t played it before, so this was my pinball stop of choice in WV. I made my way past the screaming rug-banshees and their too-tired-to-care parents to find the Roller Coaster Tycoon buried at the back of the kinder-gym.

The big surprise was the price: only a quarter to play! Usually newer Sterns require a 75 cent deposit to bat the silver ball around. Props to Chuck E. Cheese for keeping arcade payments economical! Roller Coaster Tycoon turned out to be a reasonably well-designed and fun pingame, but I felt like it suffered from restricted resources. Lawlor is obviously doing what he can with the limited budget that Stern allots him, but the lack of molded plastics and custom toys are a definite detractor. All in all it was a fun bare-bones game.

Okay, now for the comics! I rolled into Beckley, West Virginia for my signing with plenty of time to spare. It’s a quaint, sleepy little town which thankfully supports its local comic shop.

The store that hosted me during my West Virginian leg of the tour was one of three “Lost Legion Games and Comics” stores. This one was called, “The Castle.” Employee, JP, was gracious enough to show me around the shop.

This was a big driving day for me. It took about 5 hours to get from Louisville, KY to Beckly, WV. Then, once my signing was over, it was another 5 hours from WV to my buddy Paul Friedrich‘s place in Raleigh, NC. One of the side benefits of driving ALL DAY LONG is that you get to see things like this:

I finally pulled up to Paul‘s, place close to midnight. Paul is a full-time artist, so I spent a few blurry minutes admiring his methodical paintings before I crashed for the night.

The following day, Paul showed me around his studio in Raleigh, NC and took me to a number of hip stops around Raleigh. A couple of his friends own this place called Raleigh Denim. These are some local-folks-gone-big. Evidently their jeans are now in Barneys and other fancy places like that. While I’m not big on jeans, their showroom was pretty cool. Check out their ceiling filled with paper airplanes.

After a quick burger for lunch (more healthy road food) we drove about 45 minutes west to my next signing at Chapel Hill Comics.

Chapel Hill Comics is a great boutique-y type of comic book store with a healthy variety of independent comics and mini-comics, in addition to the usual capes and tights that keep the LCS‘s afloat. Owner, Andrew, was on-hand to give me a tour of the place. Let’s show the folks what you work it with, Andrew!

Aside from signing at a fantastic shop, another reward of stopping in Chapel Hill was getting to hang out with two of my great comics buds, Paul Friedrich (below right) and Eric Knisley (below left). I originally met Paul and Eric during the 2004 Comic Con International in San Diego, my first time exhibiting there. They were my first table neighbors and Paul and I are still table neighbors to this day! (Come back to comics, Eric!)

Needless to say, it was great seeing each of them on their home turf in North Carolina. Paul‘s friend, Dave, also showed up at the end of my signing and all four of us had a delicious dinner at an Indian restaurant a few doors down where we talked about life and comics and pinball. In the 18 hours that I’d been in NC, Paul and I still hadn’t found any pins. Thankfully, Eric knew of a place, called Bowbarr, with one pinball machine and it was only a block away.

BOPP was one of the first licensed themes used on pinball and a really early solid state machine, so it still played with chimes instead of programmed music, which was kind of endearing.

Once I changed a couple bucks into quarters, the bartender figured we would be saddling up to old Bobby Orr and gave us a tour of the machine, which included some fun banks of drop targets and an up-post between the flippers (supposedly the first on a SS machine).

I pumped in some quarters and all four of us duked it out with the silver ball. Up until this point, I’ve either played pinball on my own or with one other person. This was the first time I played with all four digital displays lit up, and it was a ton of fun. Here’s Eric wondering what happened after (another) unfortunate drain.

In Eric’s defense, he ended up going head to head with me on the last game and winning the championship for the evening. 🙂

The machine was in pretty tip-top shape aside from one malfunctioning score display. Regardless of what happened, player three always had 80 points. At least you knew what your score would be if you were third in the line-up.

Paul and I still had a 45 minute drive back to his place in Raleigh, so we parted ways after a few rounds of pinball.

I wanted to leave you with a parting image. The following is a photographed page from Paul‘s sketchbook. This is one of SEVERAL PAGES of different arcade games he illustrated. He does this for EVERY character and prop he draws. The dedication and meticulous process of his illustration astounds me and I thought you might enjoy a behind the scenes glimpse as well.

Paul, it was so great seeing your place in NC, talking about art, and catching-up in a location outside of Comic-Con. I can’t wait to do it again!

Dude, I am loving these posts! I just keep smiling from ear to ear like an idiot as I read through them.

Kudos to Chapel Hill Comics. It looks amazing, reminded me of Lee’s Comics out here in CA. And any store that’s got Jim Rugg’s Rambo 3.5 right up front is an instant winner in my book.

For a gaming store, that West Virginia shop was actually pretty cool. For a gaming store.

Lastly, if you ever find yourself back at Atlantis Fantasyworld in Santa Cruz, you gotta’ hit Neptune’s Kingdom on the boardwalk. It’s an indooor mini-golf/arcade sort of place, and they must easily have 20 pinball machines (maybe 30?). Not sure if they’d live up to your burgeoning standards of quality, but there sure are a lot of them!

Justin: Chapel Hill Comics was a really impressive place. One of those shops you’d be happy to frequent, and always be able to find something you wanted (regardless of what did or didn’t come out on Wednesday).

Lost Legion definitely slanted more toward the gaming side of the spectrum. They were nice folks and awfully kind to me, but probably not my target demographic due to a much heavier interest in gaming than indie comics. But, hey, they were the only place in West Virginia that would give me the time of day (and I called a lot of different West Virginia shops…sheesh!).

And finally, thanks for the Santa Cruz pinball tip! If I make my way up there again, I’ll definitely have to swing by the boardwalk and check out their selection. In other Santa Cruz News, did you know that Atlantis FantasyWorld owner, Joe Ferrara, sings every Friday night at a place called the Shadowbrook Restaurant? He’s really great. I’ve seen him a couple different times. Super fun.

The Dave: Wows, supportive and classy all in one statement. In the words of the Golden Girls, “Thank you for being a frieeeeend.”